Charlie Huston Is Redeveloping ‘Powers’ At FX

It’s been almost half a year since any official word about the fate of “Powers.” Based upon the critically acclaimed superhero crime comic by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Oeming; “Powers” had a difficult development cycle as a feature film before it landed a pilot at FX.

Even with a finished pilot episode in hand, “Powers” was apparently stalled at FX. But there is still hope that the project may yet make it to TV.

Over at IGN, FX President John Landgraf reveals that “Powers” is still alive in large part to a script by novelist Charlie Huston.

“After we made the pilot, we actually developed three more [episode] scripts,” explained Landgraf. “We decided between the pilot and the scripts that it wasn’t quite the series that we needed it to be… But one of the scripts was written by this guy named Charlie Huston… Both I and Brian and others thought, ‘Wow, there is actually something in the tone of this.’”

“So what ended up happening was we reconstituted the whole thing around Charlie as the creator, with Brian,” continued Landgraf. “Charlie went up to Seattle, and they sat down and they talked, and read through all the books, and they came back with a new vision, basically. Essentially, a new pilot to begin with, which is a new, different story than the pilot that we shot. So that pilot is officially gone and dead, and the actors are all gone, but we’re developing a whole new pilot from scratch.”

Among comic book fans, Huston may be best known for writing Moon Knight, Deathlok and Wolverine: The Best There Is. But Huston is also a renowned pulp novelist with several books to his credit, including "Already Dead," "The Shotgun Rule" and "My Dead Body."

During the IGN interview, Landgraf also laid out his reasoning for not going forward with the previous pilot of “Powers.”

“What it’s always come down to for me is I know the underlying [‘Powers’] material is absolutely great,” said Landgraf. “But I feel like there have been so many great adaptations of graphic novels done that we have to add something… I feel like we have to bring something to the table that doesn’t exist. Television adaptations of graphic novels, for the most part, have been the pretty good food you’ll take when really good food isn’t available, you know what I mean?”

“I want to make something else with Brian and Charlie and others that’s just as good but different, and trades on the particular strengths that television has in terms of what it can do,” added Landgraf. “And if we can get ‘Powers’ to that level, I’ll make another pilot, and I’ll put it on the air. But I’m not going to put anything less than an absolutely great version of ‘Powers’ on the air. That’s like remaking a great film into a good film, and I don’t want to do that.”